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Many of us will be firing up our grills this weekend for some well-deserved barbecue time. After all, barbecuing is one of America’s greatest pastimes, but it certainly isn’t one of our most environmentally friendly. Whether you prefer charcoal, wood chips or propane, grilling releases emissions and contributes to poor air quality. Up until now, solar powered grilling has required, as you might expect, the sun, which means traditional fuel-fired grills are required after sunset. But new solar technology developed by MIT professor David Wilson could bring a nighttime solar-powered grill to the market very soon; an invention also of great benefit to those in developing nations who rely on wood to cook all their food.

Wilson’s technology harnesses the sun and stores latent heat to allow cooking times for up to an amazing twenty five hours at temperatures above 450 degrees Fahrenheit. The technology uses a Fresnel lens to harness the sun’s energy to melt down a container of Lithium Nitrate. The Lithium Nitrate acts as a battery storing thermal energy for 25 hours at a time. The heat is then released as convection for outdoor cooking.

“There are a lot of solar cookers out there,” says Wilson, “but surprisingly not many using latent-heat storage as an attribute to cook the food.” Wilson developed the idea after spending time in Nigeria, where wood is used for cooking, which causes a number of problems. Not only is cooking with firewood leading to respiratory illnesses, but is also increasing the rate of deforestation and women are being raped while searching for wood.

A group of MIT students are working with the technology to develop a prototype solar grill. Derek Ham, Eric Uva, and Theodora Vardouli are conducting a study through their multi-disciplinary course “iTeams,” short for “Innovation Teams”, to determine the interest in such a concept and then hopefully launch a business to manufacture and distribute these grills. The goal is to develop a business model for distributing solar grills to developing nations as well as a grill for the American market. The American version is expected to be a hybrid propane/solar model that will allow for flame cooking as well as through thermal convection. If all goes well, in a couple years we just be giving solar grills as presents on Father’s Day and enjoying sun-kissed instead of char-broiled even after the sun goes down.

I question the safety of the Lithium Nitrate, and what it breaks down to once used.
Lithium Nitrate can cause nervous system damage if ingested and can cause irritation to skin eys and nose if exposed.
When Lithium Nitrate is heated it produces Lithium Oxide and Nitrogen Dioxide. Lithium Oxide is corrosive and in solid form, reacts violently with water.
Nitrogen Dioxide is a toxic gas.

These are artist drawings of the grill, and not a prototype.
Contact Lehigh University to provide you info on Ben Franklin.
Ben Franklin located in Lehigh Valley, PA. provides startup
funds for new enterprises. It may help you to get into production
faster.

The Ninash Foundation (www.ninash.org) builds schools for female and minority children of India. The three villages where 5 schools are established could use solar-powered grills. Let's know when you are ready to build them and sell them? We might be able to help the villagers in these towns.

so here is what I think. In stead of cooking food in this I would boil water and create steam and release it at high pressure over turbines that are turning generators to create electricity. Collect the steam and condense it back to the water tank and let it just keep on going. Power for ever. Well as long as you live and the device remains intact with the sun shining.

Aloha! This is a photo-shopped picture of women who are really making palm oil in Ghana. You may want to contact the source of the photo and let them know. It was in poor taste to dupe people whoever made that photo.
http://www.thisfabtrek.com/journey/africa/ghana-togo-benin/20090330-accra/ghana-white-palm-oil-4.jpg

Why a different version for the US? I want the one that I see in the picture that is totally solar and able to grill without fuel except for solar. When will we be able to buy these..I want it now lol. Please market it soon, we need these especially in apartments where charcoal grills are banned and a tank of compressed propane outside my house or close to my house is just not happening. Sorry.

sounds like a pretty expensive high tech fix for african wood burning peasants living a subsistance life off the land. Even in high production, what will one of these units cost as a percentage of annual income for poor rural Nigerians?
As for the gleaming stainless steel yuppie model in the US Suburbia....how much energy was expended in mining the iron and nickle and chromium and lithium and melting refining then fabricating this item? how many bags of charcoal made from recycled biomass (another form of solar stored energy BTW harvested from waste sawdust and providing low wage domestic employment) will be saved over the life of this yuppie-ware unit?which (probably will be made in China, in a cancer village factory zone)
...Is that a good trade? or is it a feel-good "green-ware" unit that makes people feel like they are "doing something" like driving a Tesla...that makes the world a better more sustainable place? Think thou MIT engineers, use your math skills as an economist first, use your design skill to calculate to society you create, shrewdly and frugally use the finite resources you manage.

THE SOLAR POWERED COOKER MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE IS NOT REAL. THERE IS RESEARCH GOING ON TO COME UP WITH A VIABLE SOLAR COOKING SOLUTION, BUT THIS RESEARCH IS NOT COMPLETED AND WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR YEARS.

I am 58 years old and did solar cooking when I was a Girl scout in grade school. I can't believe it is taking this long to come full circle! we used a cardboard box and tin foil and it worked great!6 month ago you had an article about a teen who invented a solar laser that could melt cement was that a joke too? I drew Prototypes at the age of 13 and couldn't understand why they were not out on the market then! I can't believe a magnifying lens is so expensive. Yet I still think this is an answer to places that you don't want to ruin the environment by using it to cook with. After seeing the solar tubes that are available to put in your home that directs the Sunlight down into the house it would even be usable inside. To purchase solar cooking ovens they all seem to be coming out of Australia! I really can't figure out why more people are not trying to bring this to market!

The wording of this article is a bit misleading. This grill as shown simply will not be able to cook non stop with 1 day's thermal storage.
Given that:
1. At best on a clear day near the equator in mid-summer you will get 1 kW/m^2 of direct-normal solar insolation for the eqivilent of 11 hours (1 kW-h/m^2)
and
2. An efficient cooking grill requires a flux of around 40 kW/m^2 to safely cook meats
Then assuming the collector area is roughly the same as the cooking surface area (as it appears shown here. The slant will add a few percent more area, but let's keep the math simple, you can estimate from there), you can see that, in the best possible case, 1 day of charging will give you about 17 minutes of grilling time.
(11 kW-h/m^2 / 40 kW/m^2 = 0.275 hr)
It would be possible to store up 25 hours of grilling time with enough nitrate salt and good insulation, but it would take you --91 days-- of perfect summer weather to get there. Any cloudy days, and you get only diffuse, non-concentrating sunlight, which must be taken into account as well.
This would be a fun but expensive occasional use eco-grill for the wealthy for now, but it simply can't operate at the rate required for daily meal prep as pictured in the village above.

I know these photos are photoshopped BUT all inventions have their origins in IDEAS + THOUGHTS everything we use today was once unimaginable so before we get too down on this amazing technology idea lets celebrate innovation.

Thanks. Great idea for clean grilling, but the more sustainable suggestion would be to grill vegetables and not animal flesh. The animal industry is unsustainable and the environmental impact extremely negative.

I believe the whole Wilson solar stove you see is a scam. They never supply any additional information and the photos are all fake - Photoshop work, not actual application of the product.
Plenty of people chiming in to say how wonderful it is, but no one from Wilson to respond. Maybe if we asked how we could send tons of investment money instead of how we could apply the technology in impoverished countries we'd get a response.

Hello.
This is a fantastic use of knowledge.
If possible I would like to know more about the project and material involved to manufacture this grill. It seems a fresnel special lense is used and it a core of this project.
[email protected]

Not sure of the technology, but could sodium replace the lithium? I know researchers in Perth Australia have just had a breakthrough with water based sodium ion batteries, not yet finished but looks really positive.
Sodium would make the whole system far cheaper, more accessible to developing nations and be far better for the environment. Could it work?

Okay, where do we learn if this is economically viable for poorer nations such as Haiti. We do a lot of outreach work there, but funds are always very tight. As much as I'd love to see this technology there, it must be affordable or it will never happen. How much?

I'm sorry but the photos look surreal - retouched photography created on someone's desktop. Interesting idea but it is highly unlikely that the communities in need will ever receive these shiny, state of the art appliances. Great marketing scheme though - appealing to our need to provide sustainable solutions to these communities in need. but I'm not buying

Perhaps the best market for this thing is in industrialized countries, where it can supplant residential propane barbecues. I can't imagine it's going to cheap anytime soon and, yes, it appears to be a prototype. Calling you local big box store for more information will certainly get you nowhere for now.
I wouldn't be concerned with the lithium nitrate in this grill any more than most here would be concerned with poisoning from lithium ion based batteries in their portable electronic devices. Like a battery, it's a sealed system. The chemicals don't become an issue unless the device is dismantled far beyond most end users would dare to venture. Like a lithium ion battery, having the heat storage element properly recycled at the end of its lifespan is what needs to be insured.

This sounds "cool' but is it appropriate technology? Can it be made for less than $4? Probably not. So it's not going to be feasible for poor people in Africa. The rocket stove, which can be made from an old can and some mud, costs just pennies, and can cook a whole meal with a handful of small twigs. This techno-fix thing should be viewed as old hat by the 21st century.

I sent this article to a grilling enthusiast friend of mine. He said that the likes the concept, but also favors the charcoal flavor he gets when he grills. Hopefully the designers can incorporate a layer for adding some charcoal (for flavor, and for backup, when the solar heating part is under repair, etc.). Great idea, if the Lithium Nitrate part is environmentally friendly!

I just hope they make it affordable to the poor people of Nigeria also should look at the Philippines as many use wood and charcoal there. Just how much will the cost of these grills be anyway give me a round about answer thanks.

Anything solar is good. But grilling food produces all kinds of toxins, especially with meat. The worst are AGEs: Advanced Glycation End Products. See: http://www.caseperformance.com/85/high-heat-cooking-ages-and-their-effects-on-human-health-part-ii

As a U.S. consumer, I would be highly interested in purchasing this. I do also wish to know more about the lithium nitrate and its impact on the environment, both while being used and after the life of grill.

(Chemist answering here): When the salt is heated to it's melting point (~520 deg F), additional energy is required to convert the solid at that temperature into a liquid (this energy is reliberated when the liquid returns to solid state - the energy of crystallization). Assuming the salt is stable over the temperature range involved (which is not a trivial assumption with respect to Nitrates being corrosive and strong oxidants) you should be able to melt/recrystallize the salt many many times (in effect creating a heat battery).
So the sun would provide the energy to melt the solid Lithium Nitrate,and it could then be stored (assuming good insulation, etc) until needed for cooking. There are a number of technical problems I can see (as you have noted), but in theory, it could work.
With respect to water, there are much simpler designs for producing hot water. There are numerous solar oven designs on the net. The technology is neither new nor particularly difficult (the heat battery concept here is new to my eyes).

The reason they're using charcoal to cook in very poor countries is because that's all they can afford. I don't think an expensive solar grill comprised of a toxic molten lithium nitrate is going to do much to resolve the poverty.

Can't wait, I want one now so I can begin saving the earth sooner and make it with out the Need of Propane cause It cost money and that is still buring a Fossil Fuel no matter how the fuel was made. I would perfer Straight Sun Light so I would be the Envy of the Neigborhood and be the Fore Runner to the Best Technology in the state that saves the Planet.

I am so interested with Wilson Solar Grill. Is it possible to buy the prototype and produce it in Indonesia? Or at first my company would like to apply to be sole distributor in Indonesia? This grill would be in highly demand as Indonesia is tropical country.
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon

This would be just the thing in the rural areas of Cambodia where there is little electricity and wood and charcoal are used for cooking. I can speak from experience of cooking on small propane and using simple solar cookers as well as using a brick oven.